


Cycles

by legolastariel



Category: The Walking Dead RPF
Genre: childhood story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 12:13:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8055889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legolastariel/pseuds/legolastariel
Summary: From the moment Norman was born and drew his first breath, he’d been crying. Endless hours of crying, screaming, whining – days and nights – until a totally unnerved and overtired mother had taken her infant son to the doctor's.
  
  Yet no one had been able to help. No one had been able to stop his crying.
   Give it a chance. It's got a surprising twist at the end, but I cannot give more away in the tags. You might like it.





	Cycles

**Author's Note:**

> I usually don't do RPF - always felt like overstepping a border, but this it totally harmless, I'd say. 
> 
> I'm not an expert on the actors and their personal lives, truth to be told. Have been trying to find some information on any siblings Norman may have and came across a "Leslie", but the web is even undecided whether that is his sister or his brother, and I can't remember him ever mentioning her/him anywhere. Enlighten me, if you know for sure. For the sake of this story, I'll make Leslie his sister.  
> Btw, I meanwhile heard him say in some interview, that he does have a little sister, so this is correct here so far, I'd say.
> 
> Also, I think Norman said in some interview, that he was called by his middle name Mark till he was a teenager and allegedly didn't even know, his "real" name was Norman. I ignored that here.

_**Cycles**_

 

“Mommy?“ 

A small, warm hand patting her cheek woke Marianne Reedus and she opened burning, red-rimmed eyes to the twilight of her bedroom.  
A young girl stood at her bedside, her hair tousled and one hand rubbing repeatedly over tired, blue eyes.

“Mommy, I can’t sleep. Norm’s crying again.”

Marianne clenched her teeth and tried to suppress the heavy sigh that was about to break free. It took all of her willpower to stay calm, while in truth she felt like kicking and screaming.  
One night. Just one night of peace and quiet, and most of all an undisturbed sleep – that was all she craved. Just sleep. One night without having her son wake up from bad dreams, crying. 

“I’ll be right there, Leslie”, she soothed her daughter. “Go back to bed, honey.”

While the girl returned to her room, the young mother struggled out of bed, which took all of the energy she still possessed. It had been too long since she had last had a good-night’s sleep, and she was aware of the fact that she was not able to go on like that for much longer.  
With weary motions she stumbled over to Norman’s bedroom, hearing his sobs even before she pushed the door open. She loved her son. She loved him with all of her heart, but she was barely able to push back the anger and frustration any longer that this child aroused in her. She couldn’t bear his crying any longer.  
It was a sound she had long since started to dread, almost hate. 

_“God, let him stop. Just let him stop.”_

She wasn’t able to tell any more how many times she had spoken this silent prayer, but so far it had not been answered. 

From the moment Norman was born and drew his first breath, he’d been crying. Endless hours of crying, screaming, whining – days and nights – until a totally unnerved and overtired mother had taken her infant son to the doctor's.  
The paediatrician had thoroughly examined the little boy, and in the end all Marianne Reedus had been told was, that her son was as healthy as he could be. Yet Norman’s crying hadn’t stopped. 

The young woman walked to her son’s bed and cradled the sobbing child on her lap, soothingly running her hand over his hair.

“Sssshhh, baby. It’s okay. Did you have a bad dream?”

She knew he wasn’t going to answer her. He never had, as though he was unwilling or unable to put in words what was torturing him.  
He just snuggled up to his mother and the sobbing eased. For the moment. Marianne was well aware of the fact, that it would start anew – soon. Too soon. 

She was unable to count all the physicians she had visited with her young son. All she knew was, that not one of them had been able to tell her what was wrong with him. As a matter of fact, they had told her that there _was_ nothing wrong with him. Physically there was just no explanation for his behaviour.  
And so, as Norman grew older, her odyssey from one psychiatrist to the next had started. All efforts had rendered useless. No one had been able to help. No one had been able to stop his crying.

More than four years. Long, endless years in which the boy woke every single night. And in the daytime he was quiet, withdrawn, most of the time just staring blindly ahead of himself with an idle glance. He was caught in an everlasting sadness, for which there was no explanation.  
Marianne loved both of her children more than life itself. And she did whatever she could to provide a good living and a carefree childhood for them. Yet while Leslie was an energetic, happy and perfectly _normal_ girl, Norman barely ever smiled. Had she ever seen him laugh at all in all the years since he’d been born? She couldn’t tell. 

The warm bundle in her arms grew heavy, and with relief the woman noticed that her son had fallen asleep again. Cautious not to wake him, she placed him into his bed and tucked him in. Maybe she’d be lucky and he would sleep for a few precious hours now, so she could rest a while, too. She needed rest so badly. But most of all she needed hope, and at this point there was none. No one was able to cure her boy of whatever it was that no one was even able to define. 

She returned to her own bedroom and sank down onto the edge of her bed with a heavy sigh. It wasn’t just her fatigue that drained her of all strength. It was this … hopelessness. She wanted to see her child happy. Wanted to see him healed. Wanted to take all this pain away from him, yet she wasn’t able to. Not as long as Norman was unable to _tell_ what caused his distress.  
A lump in her throat almost choked her and again she clenched her teeth, trying to keep her composure. A tear ran down her cheek and was soon joined by others. The next moment the young mother covered her face with her trembling hands and started weeping helplessly. 

 

The sun peeked through the drapes and shone right into Marianne’s face the next day. With a start she woke up, confusion on her face. How long had she slept? A quick glance to her bedside clock showed 8:30 in the morning, and plain shock crept onto her face. She hadn’t been allowed to sleep that long since … yes, ever since Norman had been born.  
_Norman! Leslie!_  
It was so quiet. Too quiet.  
Panic clutched her heart, and she almost ran from her room to check on her children. The first room she looked into – Leslie’s – was empty. 

“Leslie? Where are you, honey?”

No answer. In a hurried pace she made her way over to Norman’s bedroom, and found it abandoned as well. 

“Norman! Where are you guys?”

Anxiety clearly colored her voice now, and the next second she rushed to the stairs to search the rest of the house for her children. She was halfway down the stairs, when she noticed a movement at the bottom. Leslie stood there, looking up to her with big eyes.

“Mommy? Norman …”

She fell quiet and just pointed to the living room, and Marianne felt all color drain from her face.

“Oh God, what happened?” she muttered, more to herself than her daughter, and brushed past her into the living room

The next moment she stopped dead in her tracks, and her eyes widened to an unnatural size.  
Norman sat in the middle of the room, playing with his Legos, which he had never taken any interest in to this day, and a wide smile was on his lips. When he noticed his mother, he lifted his head and the smile even widened. 

“Hi, mommy!”

He jumped to his feet and rushed to his mother’s arms – laughing. Laughing for the first time in his life.  
With tears in her eyes Marianne hugged the little boy close, silently thanking the higher forces above, that had answered her prayers after all. And they had. It was September 14th, 1973.

  


A few thousand miles away in London, Great Britain, a baby boy by the name of Andrew James Clutterbuck had been born that day. And two halves of one soul, that had been separated in the never-ending cycle of living, dying and being reborn had been reunited in life, ready to find each other again as they had done so many times before.  
Norman never cried again.


End file.
